CAG report on defence offset performance in next Parliament session: Finance Minister

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asserted that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on defence offset performance will be tabled in the forthcoming session of the Parliament. She further said the bill was not tabled in the last session because of coronavirus pandemic.

New Delhi:Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the CAG report on defence offset performance will be tabled in the forthcoming session of the Parliament.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on offset performance was scheduled to be tabled in the last session of Parliament but could not be done as the session had to be curtailed following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

"The C&AG Report No 20 of 2019...Defence Offset Performance was scheduled to be tabled in Parliament during the budget session (2020). The session ended, before date, due to COVID. Now the report will be placed in the next session. The contents will be known only after that, Sitharaman said in a series of tweets.

Observing that the first Rafale fighter jet was handed over to India in October 2019, the minister said, There is a year-wise phasing of how much offset obligation the companies/OEMs have to fulfil. MoD informs me that claims of such obligations being fulfilled are coming in.

Last month, India received the first set of five Rafale fighters from France. In the 36 aircraft deal, signed for around Rs 58,000 crore, Dassault Aviation has agreed to provide all fighters in a fly-away condition between 36 to 67 months from the date of signing of the inter-governmental agreement in 2016.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday made a fresh attack on the government over the Rafale fighter aircraft deal.

In a tweet, Gandhi quoted a source-based news report which claimed that the CAG has submitted its performance audit on defence offset contracts to the government with no mention of any offset deals related to the purchase of Rafale aircraft.

(PTI)